A second chance was all she wanted
by Chrome-Noise-427
Summary: An old AU Caster/Shirou fanfic I started based on an idea for an unwritten path in the series. What if Shirou was the one to meet Caster instead of Souichirou?
1. The sound of Rain

**A second chance was all she wanted – Chapter 1: The sound of Rain.**

An old AU Caster/Shirou fanfic I started based on an idea for an unwritten path in the series. A what-if scenario on if Shirou came across Caster before Souichiro did. Never got around to continuing but it may happen yet. Excuses for terrible fail when it comes to nasuverse knowledge.

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><p><em>'...She hears the sound of rain.<em>

It was a night without moonlight.

The surroundings were pitch black, and she wandered with an empty mind.

That is where she met him.

With bloodstained body and frozen limbs.

A chanced meeting that was more miraculous than any miracle.'

"Haah... hah..." The cloaked figure hunched over in the pouring rain, battling feebly against elements and fatigue alike. She staggered through the forest that surrounded Ryudou temple, caked in blood that was not her own, and mud from where she had tripped from when dizziness first assailed her mind. She cursed the darkness of the forest that shrouded all light from her, grasping at empty air and stumbling clumsily as if she were she a man dying of thirst in a desert. As the woman sought the support of trees to continue her faltering pace, curse was all she could do. She cursed the luck of having a pathetic pig of a man summon her into this world. She cursed the cruel new world she had been summoned into. And she cursed how she would soon fade from it in such a piteous manner, unless she was to find a new master within the next few minutes.

The servant known as caster had succeeded in killing her own master, and bought herself a short-lived bittersweet freedom with a heavy price. From the moment her master had summoned her, she had a feeling that she was going to despise this magus. It didn't take long for her suspicions to be confirmed. He was male. Another arrogant self-absorbed man with delusions of grandeur. Of course, he was an association magus, but he was still just another arrogant self-absorbed man. And men such as that were easily manipulated.

He was ambitious, and would wait for the war to come to him, rather than him take action. That in itself wasn't the grave error he had made, but the error of treating her as nothing more than a tool for his own gain. That was the way it had always been for Caster. He was just another Jason, but instead of blind love, this time she only knew a deep loathing for him as he regarded her with a cold eye, berated her for not being one of the stronger classes, and almost literally used her as a footstool. She bit her lip and smiled bitterly. That was all she could do while she plotted his downfall. Despite his distrust of her, she fully convinced him that she would be loyal to the very last. That she was his loyal 'tool'.

The first command spell she convinced him to use was 'but a practice', Showing him its benefits and none of its drawbacks. She brought him groceries, of all things, and it brought her joy that he was foolish enough to fall for her ploy. The second spell was perhaps the most abhorrent abuse of her powers to date. She was forced to create for him his own harem of young beautiful women from the nearby city, and so she handpicked them, and charmed them with her magecraft into becoming nothing more than puppets for his desire, shepherding them back to his distant home with a teleportation spell.

It was a horrible hypocrisy to wrong others in the same way she herself was once wronged, and it was definitely not an act she was proud of. When she returned her master resembled a spoilt child in a toy store, touching, marvelling, comparing. He revelled in the power he had over his 'subjects' and their broken minds. Caster deigned herself away from the abominable scene she had been forced to bring about, leaving before the debauchery began while seething with an anger she had not known since ages past, since she had before departed from the world of the living.

And then it came. The moment she had waited nearly a month for, a month that seemed an eternity. The third command spell. The pain that commanded her to do his bidding was almost an ecstasy unto itself. Having grown bored and tired of the same mindless drones that worked to satiate his every depravity, he eventually came to the conclusion there was one young, supple body around that had not yet been sullied. And yet it belonged to him, the mark on his hand clearly showed their contract. He licked his lips in anticipation as he loudly and clearly commanded Caster to come to his side. Perhaps had he worded his command differently, he could have enjoyed an ecstasy unlike any other woman in Fuyuki could provide before she gutted him like a pig.

"Caster, come here!" He commanded. And in a flash, she was knelt before his still unclothed figure, her purple lips made sickly sweet by the honeyed smile she bore beneath her hood.  
>"Please me." He continued, his lustful eyes boring holes into her robe, imagining the exquisite form that lie hidden beneath, his mind already imaging the lewd acts he would make his servant perform for her master. It was always about power for him. The thought of having such a powerful being at his every whim was almost exhilarating enough on its own.<p>

"I said please me." The Master glared at the servant, far too slow to notice the last mark on his hand had faded away.  
>"No.. The pleasure is all mine. "The servant smiled. And dismembered him in as gruesome a manner as her spellcraft would allow. Oh, but she wouldn't kill him just yet.<p>

He was a pathetic, writhing, whimpering mass of flesh when she drew Rule Breaker and strolled slowly up to the magus whose legs had just forcibly removed themselves. He begged and pleaded with her, even as she stuck her prismatic dagger deep into his shrivelled heart and tore it free unceremoniously. And she laughed, covered in the blood that had sprayed from his corpse. It was a hollow laugh of triumph, soon cut short as she was soon made aware of the grave miscalculation she had made as she felt herself grow heavy, and weary. Caster was not a class with the independent Action ability, and she could only last as long as the power she held.

She could only offer the women she had abducted a mournful smile and a silent apology as she left them behind, like shadows of her past self. It was small consolation that when she left, she would need to leave the spell to wear off to sustain herself long enough to reach the city, And that with normality restored, they would remember nothing. And so, she had descended from his retreat and took the only route there was to Fuyuki city from there, preserving her magical energy as best she could despite feeling herself weaken with each passing minute.

"Hah... Hahaha..." A dry laugh escaped Caster's strained throat as her failing vision finally happened across an unbelievable sight. It was light. Unmistakeably from a lamp post that overlooked a road. She had made it through the dark of the forest and toward the light through the clearing, just as she would soon fade from this world. She laughed at the dreadful irony, making it so far all for her to die once again in plain sight at the roadside. Her movements were little more than a crawl as she flung herself over the barrier and onto the concrete path that lay beside a placid road late at night. She laughed until her hoarse voice allowed it no more, and propped herself against the small barrier. It was still pouring with rain, she noted, tilting her head to focus her blurry vision at a starless sky. As her consciousness began to fade, the servant formerly known as Medea could have sworn her pointed ears had caught the sound of footsteps splashing through the rain.

_"Hey...! Hey! Are you alright?"_

And now a voice? It was most likely a last jest at her expense from the gods. The same cruel gods who had forever tormented her, and left her bitter and twisted.

That was what she thought, at least.


	2. A night without Moonlight

**A second chance was all she wanted - Chapter 2: A night without moonlight.**

I wasn't originally going to continue this fanfic, but after all the encouragement and positive reviews I've been receiving, I feel like I definitely owe it to you all. (: I just hope it doesn't disappoint.  
>Wonder what Shirou was doing before he found Caster? Well you're about to find out.<p>

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><p><em>'<em>...She hears the sound of rain.

_It was a night without moonlight._

The surroundings were pitch black, and she wandered with an empty mind.

That is where she met him.

With bloodstained body and frozen limbs.

A chanced meeting that was more miraculous than any miracle.'

He was the first person everyone would go to if they needed something fixing, and there was always something that needed fixing on the Homurahara school grounds. A broken down heater, a faulty projector, or one of the computers in the I.T. department. He never complained though. For a magus such as Emiya Shirou, they were the perfect practice for the only magecraft he could perform. It had been perhaps twenty or thirty minutes since he was approached by one of the cleaners whilst leaving school late, and having heard that he was fairly handy with 'that sort of thing', she asked him to take a look at the recently broken vacuum cleaner, and as usual, Shirou agreed without hesitation. After he'd made certain he was alone, he laid out the various tools he'd borrowed from the janitor's closet, and painfully created the magic circuit he would need.

The agony of a hot iron rod jammed into his spine. That was the sensation he likened it to, and had grown used to. Structural grasp magecraft was his ability. Analysing an object's composition as if it were a blueprint, and increasing it's effectiveness or durability. Even with his structural analysis, it still took him the better part of fifteen minutes to repair it effectively, drenched in sweat and still enduring the searing hot pain spiking through his body. Such was the price of magecraft: 'Every time you use it, you risk losing your life'. That was what his father, Emiya Kiritsugu taught him. He understood the lesson well, but was unafraid of death. To be a magus was to have death as a constant companion.

The darkening sky informed him that he had finished up later than was intended. After casting a glance at the clock upon the wall, he breathed a small sigh. Fujimura Taiga, his energetic teacher and guardian would likely be fuming at him were he to return now, Not to mention he would have to deal with that sulky face Matou Sakura wore whenever he was late for her cooking, or was worried. Dealing with both could wait until tomorrow.  
>"Well... It can't be helped..." Shirou muttered aloud to himself. There was still other things that came to mind which would normally need costly repairs, and leaving now would feel as if he'd only done half a job.<p>

He endured that searing iron rod forced into his spine a second time, and then a third time, until any further work was impossible for his weary body and mind. After another successful operation on Class 3-E's Heater, the redhead slipped the tools and the flashlight he'd borrowed back into the janitor's closet and leant his heavy body against it, trying to will some strength back into leaden limbs and kill off the pounding in his head. When he peered out of the window, a cold rainy night had already blanketed the building, smothering almost all light beneath. While he'd been working, what had begun as a light drizzle had soon become a complete downpour accompanied a heavy wind laying siege to the glass panels noisily.

Tap-tap-tap-tap. It was so damn noisy. Where on earth would he find an umbrella in the school at this hour?  
>Tap-tap-tap-tap. He'd catch his death, let alone a cold out there.<br>Tap-tap-tap-tap. That noise... it was growing louder, closer, and it echoed. And then Shirou's head finally cleared.  
>That definitely wasn't rain.<p>

"Who's there?" Shirou demanded into the creeping darkness of the second floor corridor and the encroaching footsteps echoing off the tiled floor.  
>Maybe it was just a worker who had decided to stay in the relative shelter of the school for now, maybe it was a burglar, but the feeling of foreboding building in the pit of his stomach would not accept otherwise.<p>

He gritted his teeth. Narrowed his eyes. Balled his hands into fists.  
>"Emiya Shirou... isn't it?" The darkness brought forth a low mocking voice before the man that it belonged to. He couldn't even see who the speaker was, but all it took was those few words to make his skin crawl.<p>

"Who's asking?" Shirou spoke back plainly, glaring defiantly into the dark until a tall figure stepped into view, his features for the most part still obscured by the lack of light. Shirou could just about make out the slight chink of jewellery along with his footsteps, and a long coat of sorts on his body. He cursed himself for not keeping the flashlight that few minutes longer.

"How rude. Especially after I've endured the weather waiting for you, only to have to find you here." The man mockingly scolded Shirou as his face finally caught what little light the streetlights outside afforded him. Neck-length hair, a gaunt, weathered face, and hollow eyes were made visible to the student.

Shirou stiffened for a moment. He didn't know this man. "Don't screw with me! Who are you? What do you want from me?" He didn't know this man, but every fibre of his being already hated him.

"You only need know two things... Emiya Shirou." The man smiled a truly venomous smile, continuing his pacing toward the boy at the end of the barely lit corridor, his long coat making him seem almost like a ghost in the night. A ghost with heavy set footsteps. "First, I am... an old 'friend' of your father's." The man grimaced for a split-second, hesitating to use the word as if it were a deadly poison. "And secondly, I've been looking for something that used to belong to him. And there is one last place for me to look." If the unfamiliar man's cold coal eyes could bore holes into Shirou's body, they surely would have.

A few more steps were all that it would take for him to within arm's reach of Shirou. He had no idea what he meant by that but it still chilled his bones. Clearly, the man wasn't looking for a chat and the teen was already backed into a corner when he had used the janitor's closet door as support. Shirou's eyes scanned his surroundings, left to right, and then the build of the approaching man. There would be no running, but the man in the coat seemed to be unarmed. He was older. Stockier. Taller. His assessment advised him that there was a chance he could move faster than the man in the long coat, lunge at him, and catch him off-guard. It was a risk, but it was all he had.

His legs ached, his arms ached, his head ached, and his back was ready to give, but he waited the man to draw that little bit closer before he made his move liked a coiled viper, striking out with a thrust of his right fist as he threw his body forward in an attempt to press the element of surprise and bowl the man over.  
>He miscalculated. All the speed his weary body could muster was simply not enough. No, that wasn't quite right. It wasn't just not enough, even if Shirou wasn't dragging his body like some sort of puppet, he would never have been fast enough. His fist was lightly brushed aside as if it was nothing.<p>

"Wha-" Shirou began to cry out in shock, and then was swiftly cut off, as if the wind had been sucked from his sails. Pain exploded into his abdomen. If the man in the coat's fist was a sledgehammer, then Shirou's body was a crumbling old wall caving in on itself. He felt himself sail backwards with the force of the man's blow and crash into the janitor's closet, crumpling into a pathetic pile as his vision flared red. He gasped for air and it would still not fill his lungs.

"Oh...?" The man's voice barely registered over the sound of Shirou's heartbeat pulsing agonisingly in his head as he spoke with an obvious disinterest. "As Kiritsugu's son, I expected more from you. I suppose I should not have got my hopes up." He continued with a cold dull voice, as he bent down and grabbed the wretched form of the wheezing boy at his feet by his collar, and lifted him near effortlessly back against the closet door.

"Now then... Let us see if you truly are Kiritsugu's last hiding place." The red in his vision began to fade to a blur, even while he was still struggling to fill his raw lungs, even while pain still overwhelmed his senses. The teen tried to focus his vision, with limited success, and ended up looking at that sickening stomach-turning smile upon the man's face. That smile pissed him right off. He was already enduring waves of Nausea from the blow to his body, but that smile made him want to throw up. In a small pointless action of defiance, he tried to focus the blurry vision of his eyes elsewhere other than the man's sallow face.

That was when he noticed the glint of metal around the man's neck for the first time. A small golden cross hung at his chest as a lifeless corpse at the gallows. This man... was a priest? For a fleeting moment, he tried to gather his thoughts, but a sudden movement from the man in the coat promptly cut off any further thought. He felt something foreign thrust its way into his chest and claw at his insides.

Shirou's eyes bulged as he gawped down at where he'd been stabbed. He didn't know what to expect, but it certainly wasn't the priest's arm protruding from his chest. He had plunged his hand into his body and gripped his fingers around something alien inside him tightly. He gagged, gasped, and cried out in pitiful agony. The hand tore at the very core of his being, tugging, and yanking. It was torture, and Shirou's captor seemed to take his time relishing every painstaking moment he took.

It hurt. It hurt. Oh god it hurt. It felt like an ungodly torture that even humbled the fires of hell. His heart, or his soul, or perhaps even both seemed to be being ripped from within him and out the front of his body. He desperately fought for each breath to come, he desperately fought to keep his consciousness from fading, but it was to no avail. As his vision began to fade out and his senses crawled to a close, a brilliant gold light had emerged from the core of his body with a final yank from the priest.

It was the sound of the rain eased the breath of life back into him, and drew him from a state not dissimilar from that of a deep dreamless slumber. If he could hear the heavy unrelenting torrent of rain outside, he was definitely not dead yet, even if it was just as black when he eased an eye open as it was with the one that was still closed. When the thick haze of his mind cleared somewhat, he recalled that astonishing bright light emanating from his chest as his attacker pulled his hand free, and that priest's nauseating smile. He held his breath for a fleeting moment as he clutched his chest where a large cavity should be gaping, only to breathe a sigh of relief when he found the only gaping hole there was that of his shirt, damp with blood and sweat. So he -had- been stabbed, and yet there was no wound where one should have been.

"...What the heck was that about...?" The teen grumbled groggily, finding his feet in the darkness as his attacker's voice haunted his mind. Just what did he mean by his father's last hiding place? What was it that the priest was after? He was left in the dark with only questions and a hole in his shirt with no idea how long he'd been out cold for. That was when something else the priest had said dawned on him. He had been waiting for him. Had he been waiting at the Emiya residence? Had he come into contact with Sakura and Fuji-nee? As soon as the thought entered his mind, he flung himself toward the stairs and the building's exit in a lopsided run holding his chest. Braving the harsh coalition of wind and rain that battered at his already beaten body was nothing when there were the lives of his makeshift family at stake.

He hadn't gotten far until the ground slipped out from beneath his stumbling feet.  
>Looking back now, it had to be fate that his foot caught the curb and tripped him flat upon his face in that pouring cold rain. Had he not clumsily mis-stepped, and had to drag his shambling body up from the pavement, he would simply have kept going towards the shopping district and eventually his home.<p>

He never would have noticed what he appeared to be the small blot of a decrepit figure in the distance tumble out from the woods around Ryuudou temple. Having crawled back to the barrier it had bungled over, it finally lay still and placid at the roadside. The redheaded boy felt strength return to his heavy limbs, and threw himself into another lumbering run toward the crumpled figure, splashing without grace through the wind and rain.  
>"Hey...! Hey! Are you alright?" Shirou yelled at the top of his battered lungs.<p>

He never could ignore someone in need.


	3. Pitch Black

**A second chance was all she wanted - Chapter 3: Pitch Black._  
><em>**

Again, I honestly wasn't going to continue this because I felt that I'd only let people down. Have had to make some changes to my plans with this fic already and I really don't know where this might go in future. I intended to focus on their romance rather than the grail war, and because of this I've not really plotted ahead. That coupled with my basic understanding of the Fate universe = Me majorly stressing when I get criticism. But the wiki has proved quite helpful. Anyway, Plot plot plot plot plot. I know it's just getting to the Shirou and Caster interaction but I don't really know if I'll update in future, just a fair warning.

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><p><em>'<em>...She hears the sound of rain.

It was a night without moonlight.

The surroundings were _pitch black_, and she wandered with an empty mind.

That is where she met him.

With bloodstained body and frozen limbs.

A chanced meeting that was more miraculous than any miracle.'

If the crumpled figure had heard his raspy voice over the downpour, it hadn't stirred an inch, or given any evidence that it still retained any life in the least. From where Shirou loped on, hindered by bearing the brunt of the rain upon his face, It looked like little more than a large umbrella that had been lost to the tempestuous torrent of wind and rain with the way it seemed to flutter and flap under the weather's assault. Naturally, the figure became less obscure the closer he came, and yet the closer he came, the more of a mystery the figure became. Caked in dirt, mud and possibly blood, a dark cloak of some fine material that Shirou didn't recognise shrouded the distinct curves belonging to a female body within. What were her circumstances? Had she been attacked? Robbed? Hurt? Killed? Was she some sort of homeless person? No, the cloak was far too fine, even crusted with grime and whatever else the heavy rain had brought about in the forest. He shambled into a crouch over the figure, arms stretched to shake the bundle by it's shoulders; and then he paused.

Just who was this?

He paused and let his eyes marvel at the beauty beneath the cloak. At a distance, she had looked like little more than a decrepit, pitiable shape upon the floor. Up close however, was entirely different. She made even her fragile, haggard state of unconscious seem like the graceful, dignified slumber of a queen; full violet-crested lips parted with shallow breaths, bangs of powder-blue cascading either side of a pale, dirt-marred face as if to frame it like the evocative picture it was. What clothing was visible to him seemed bizarre and otherworldly, as if she had leapt straight out of some fantasy game with knights, wizards, goblins and the like. Even if he couldn't see the entirety of her face, she was enchanting; breathtaking, and completely unlike any woman he had ever seen before.

"Hey... Hey...!" The teen called to her fruitlessly as he took the unresponsive woman into his arms, handling her with the sort of great care befitting a priceless sculpture. She was lighter than she looked. Worryingly so. It was almost as if she was weightless. Almost as if she might fade from existence the moment he took his eyes off of her. Even though there were ink-like blots of what Shirou assumed was blood upon her, she didn't seem to possess any noticeable outward injuries. Perhaps she had simply fainted from exhaustion, or perhaps her damage was internal. Whatever the case was, she was alive, but barely. When his every effort to wake her proved ineffectual, he could only grow more and more worried. It was times like this that he rued the rules about mobile phones on school premises.

The woman, the mysterious foreigner, (for what else could she be?) was in dire need of help. He glanced left to right, and panic soon threatened to overwhelm his mind. He couldn't, and wouldn't, leave her side; His moral code forbade it, but he had to get her medical attention. It was only when he made to lift her, and opened his mouth to shout out for help did the sound of a singular splash behind him catch his attention. Had someone had snuck up on him again? Wasting no time, Shirou wheeled right around, half-expecting to see the sinister clergyman from earlier but when his eyes met the source he could only blink, dumbstruck. It was difficult to say what was harder to process, Who it was, clad in a coat and beneath an umbrella of red, or the fact that he hadn't heard her make her approach before what sounded like a splash landing.

"You there. Step away from-...Emiya-kun...?" Judging from her reaction, Homurahara's own model student and idol must have been just as surprised as he was.

"Huh...? Tohsaka?" He croaked her name in disbelief, as if he needed her to affirm what his eyes were seeing. Not that there was any mistaking her. Ever elegant, ever composed, even whilst clutching an umbrella in the midst of a torrential downpour, Tohsaka Rin stood before him eyeing him with an expression not unlike she was looking at a grossly misplaced jigsaw puzzle piece. Obviously, they knew each other in passing from school, but with such an uncommon meeting, she soon banished any air of familiarity behind a cool stare from her eyes of deep ocean blue.

"It's the wrong sort of weather to be out for a late night walk, don't you think?" The brunette mused with a curt and frosty tone that was a far cry from her supposedly polite and approachable persona at school, examining him and the figure he clutched with suspicion in her eyes. Not only did it seem to him that the girl knew who, or perhaps even what the woman he clutched really was, if he wasn't watching her like a hawk, he might not have noticed her gaze subtly flitting to his hands, grasped around the frame of the mysterious cloaked woman as if they might explain everything. Admittedly it was quite suspicious to be found carrying a woman in the middle of nowhere and in the dead of night, and the possibility came to mind that Rin might think he was in the process of mugging, or manhandling the woman.

"I...-" He began with the intention of explaining, but cut himself short. What could he possibly tell her? That he was practicing magic when he was suddenly attacked by a man of the cloth who tore something out from inside him, and he was in the process of running home when he saw this woman crumpled upon the ground? Not only did that sound completely and utterly ridiculous, even as fact, but Magecraft was also something that was to be kept secret from ordinary humans at all costs. The best he could do is simply hope that she knew him better than that. "Look, it doesn't matter, she needs help! Do you have a phone with you or something?" The red-haired teen wasted no time in getting to the point, motioning with his eyes to the woman clasped in his arms. Despite asking this, her approach had made him more than a little worried.

As if she suddenly came to realise something, Rin's expression shifted in the blink of an eye to that of an 'innocent' and disarming smile. "Of course. Don't worry, Emiya-kun, I'll take care of her. You should run along home before you catch your death of cold." Shirou, of course, didn't buy it, and didn't move a muscle. That butter-wouldn't-melt smile didn't do anything to assuage his suspicions, even when accompanied by the sweetest of tones from a tongue no doubt skilled in charming people. Such suspicious manner hardly encouraged his cooperation when it seemed that she clearly wanted him out of the picture for some reason, and who knows might have happened had he not turned out to be a fellow schoolmate. "What are you really here for, Tohsaka?" He challenged. Clearly her presence here and at this time had purpose, and was definitely not one of coincidence.

With her 'idol's charm' rejected, Rin's more intimidating demeanour reared its head again in an instant with an icy foreboding glare. There was no more sweet smiling honour student to it where there had been before. Perhaps Ryuudou Issei's allegationsabout her underlying malicious nature weren't all hot air after all. "That woman is dangerous, you need to leave. Now." Her warning-come-demand sent a shiver down the boy's spine, and reflexively, he tightened his grasp on the cloaked woman who was quickly growing colder. In fact, her body warmth could almost literally be felt escaping her and that only fuelled the feeling of urgency within him.

"Dangerous to who?" Shirou exclaimed loudly in disbelief, narrowing his eyes at the girl beneath the umbrella. "She's out cold!"

Tohsaka paused for a moment regarding the fallen woman with what might have been irritation. And with another splash in the rain, she took a step closer to Shirou with dark intent in her eyes, the movement leaving her dark locks batting her features with the wind and seemingly making her appear somewhat more menacing. With a slow deliberate motion, she pointed the forefinger of her free hand at him, and somehow, Emiya Shirou knew he was looking down the equivalent of the barrel of a loaded gun. "I'm warning you, Emiya-kun; for your own good, leave and forget you saw anything tonight. "

"Or what? You'll kill me?" Now he was tempting fate, given how she was seemingly entertaining the notion.

"Really, Emiya-kun? You really won't back down?" She frowned harder, if that were possible, her annoyance thinly veiled behind a cool and collected persona. "You're willing to die for a complete stranger when I'm telling you that they're dangerous?" His behaviour seemed to perplex her. Was it really that baffling that someone would want to help a fallen stranger? Was it not human nature? The right thing to do?

"Right now you're the one looking dangerous, Tohsaka. I'm -not- leaving." Insisted Shirou with a firm shake of his head, turning from Rin to shield for the unconscious foreigner with his own body, his eyes shut and his body tensed in apprehension for... something. Some sort of deathblow perhaps. He had no idea what she was capable of, or what she might do, but it certainly felt like nothing would surprise him after the evening's turn of events. Regardless he was ready to protect this mysterious stranger from anything she could throw at them by any means necessary. A mutual silence that seemed to span a short eternity descended after that with Rin's eyes boring holes into him.

She inhaled hard and then...

...Prodded him roughly in the back of his head, eliciting a small yelp from the redheaded teen.

"...Geez, Why do you have to be so stubborn?" A loud, unladylike groan of annoyance punctuated her sentence. "Alright, fine. You can keep your pet, but you better be willing to take responsibility for it, got it?" And with that, Rin seemingly deflated with that groan of hers, relaxing her posture into folded arms with her umbrella still clasped close and her head had turned away from him in disdain.

Nonplussed at both her sudden change in behaviour and her choice of words, all Shirou could manage when he peered back over his shoulder and rubbed his head were a blank expression and a dumb-sounding "...Eh...?" as his body swivelled to face her once again.

"Well, what are you standing around for? We've wasted enough time as it is." Rin snapped haughtily. "If you want to save her, we need to get her...-" Trailing off, she jabbed her slender pointer finger upward in the direction opposite where she stood. "-...Up there." Instinctively the boy turned his head to follow the finger to its indicated destination; the almost sinister shadow of Ryuudou Temple standing above the trees and beneath a clouded moonless sky. It struck him as a particularly strange place to take someone ailing and possibly dying, but she was right. Their little encounter had seemingly taken its toll on the mysterious woman, and time was of the essence.

There was nothing for it. He would just have to trust Rin. And after sparing a glance in the direction of the path toward its many steps, he exhaled slowly and spoke his mind. "I don't really understand, but I'll do it." Shirou replied with a firm nod, peering at the ever-unreadable Tohsaka. "I know it's asking a lot right now, but can you do a favour for me?"

Caught by surprise, the girl beneath the umbrella quirked a brow inquisitively, replying with a tentative "What is it?" as he groped around inside his trouser pockets and eventually withdrew a set of orthodox looking keys.

"You know where I live, right? Big Japanese style house in north Miyamachou? Please..." He began sincerely, holding the simple keys out to her. "I think someone might have broken into my place, and if Fuji-nee and Sakura were there, then-" Evidently, the concern in his voice spoke volumes, and he needn't have said any more as the brunette stormed up to him and snatched them from his hand.

"Alright, alright. I'll take a look, but you need to get moving. And don't attract any further attention." Her tone was sharp and irritable, but it was clear she meant well. Or at least, he hoped she did. Whatever her plan had been before, she hadn't counted on Shirou being there, and being as stubborn as he was. With a nod and a brief-but-grateful smile, he stooped down and scooped the motionless cloaked woman up and into a fireman's lift as carefully and gently as he was able. Renewed with vigour born of purpose, the sores and pains of Shirou's bruised and battered body had subsided or at least numbed with the disposition of bearing the burden of another life on his shoulders. Yet her strangely light body was no burden to him at all as he begun to take his leave toward the many stairs of the path to the temple.

After a number of steps, the sound of Rin's voice reminded him that she hadn't left just yet. "Oh and Emiya-kun, I don't think gaping holes are part of school uniform. You'll have to explain that one to me later~" His heart skipped a beat. Of course she would pick up on his sorry-looking state; anyone with a good pair of eyes would since not only had he made no conscious effort to cover it up, but he also lacked any means of doing so. It was the most obvious indication of Shirou's less than ordinary day, and yet he had no idea where he could possibly begin to explain the evening's events to her.

He spun around and urged his brain to formulate some sort of response, but regardless of whether he could find the words, she had simply vanished, almost as though she had never been there in the first place.

Once again, he was alone, save for the crumpled heap on his back. His only choice was to soldier on through the downpour and up the stairs to the looming darkness and find sanctuary in Ryuudou Temple.


End file.
